No matter how many times I I’ve already shared tips with you before on how to help overcome your fear of public speaking, it doesn’t hurt to know some more. Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned speaker/presenter, below are three ways you can add to your repertoire when preparing to speak in public:

1. Focused Relaxation – Find a quiet place where you can sit and relax and just focus on your breathing. Just breathe in, breathe out. Don’t think. Count your breath until you reach 500.

2. Contemplating the Shadow – This is all about balancing a certain paradox – that in public speaking, you are both the center of attention and the least important person in the room.

3.Opening Your Senses – Be in the moment. Experience the present. Allow yourself to open up sensually to your surroundings.

Ever since PowerPoint 2007, SmartArt has already been available. Presenters use this when they want to convert bulleted text into a diagram to make the slide presentation more appealing and less tiring to the audience.

What SmartArt does is basically turn the slide into a visually attractive graphic rather than a boring page full of text.

Some options that one can do to slides with a lot of text are the following:

Delete the text, add a useful graphic, and just speak out the text

Divide the slide into 2 or more slides

Edit the text to reduce the number of words

When these options are not enough anymore, then one can turn to SmartArt. PowerPoint showcases a lot of SmartArt configurations and layouts. You won’t run out of designs to choose from.

When presenting, do you use objects on your slides? Are you able to portray the image you want using custom objects? Presenters or PowerPoint users oftentimes use custom objects to make their slides more interesting. It gives more meaning to the whole presentation and makes it more engaging for the audience.

When you use objects on your slides, you can customize them to the extreme using these two ways:

1. By combining shapes – you add two objects together2. By using Bézier curves – so you can make them look like anything you want

Typically, you make custom shapes to show exactly what you want your audience to see. To know more on how to do this, you can see examples as well as the steps on how to go about it on this post: Customize slide objects to the extreme

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and below are three key concepts from this discipline that will help any public speaker, whether old or new, overcome his or her fear of public speaking:

Become Friends With The Part Of You That Is Scared – Instead of resisting that part of you that is scared, get to know it better. Why is it scared? Is it because it just wants to do a good job and deliver a perfect speech? Then work on it. Once you know why that part of you is scared, then you can start to relax with yourself.

Focus On What You Want – Whatever thoughts you repeat to yourself, your unconscious will eventually believe it. So focus only on good thoughts and what you want to achieve as a speaker.

Awareness Of Your Mission As A Speaker – When you know your purpose for delivering your message, your message will be more important than your fears. So focus on what your mission is instead of on the judgments of your audience.

Images are very important on presentations. They catch the attention of the audience and help keep them engaged. However, not all images have this kind of effect. But if you use image treatments and know what kind of image treatment to use, then your chance of creating a wonderful and engaging presentation increases. Here are ways to make your images beautiful:

1. 3-side Rule – This is when an image touches at least 3 sides of a slide.

2. Isolated Image – This is using an image with similar background as the slide.

3. Snapshot Treatment – This is when you need to include several images on a particular slide

4. Images in SmartArt – This is when you use small images on SmartArt diagrams.

The season of love is not just for lovers. Even presenters can show their audience some love through the following tips:

Warm Up – by smiling, being friendly, creating rapport and making your audience feel welcome and comfortable.

Start with a Hook. – Make your opening remarks catchy and attention grabbing rather than the usual “I want to talk to you about…”

Make It About Them – I’ve mentioned it time and time again that presenting or public speaking is not about you (the speaker or presenter) but about your audience. So make it about them. Make it worth their while by telling and showing them the benefits they’ll get by attending your presentation. Match their level of energy. Be like them and they will like you in return.

Find the Funny – Humor always makes people feel good and when they feel good they participate and engage themselves more.

Engage – Do this by telling your story, asking them questions and letting them participate.

Build Anticipation – Do this by introducing a new idea to your audience but don’t give them all the answers just yet. It’s like teasing them. It will keep them on their toes.

Are you the type of presenter who uses PowerPoint most of the time? If so, are you aware of some things you can do in order for you to work faster in PowerPoint? Below are some awesome tips you can take note of to cut the hours it takes for you to make your PowerPoint presentation.

The ribbon is often the slowest way. Use the toolbar instead.

Right-click is your friend. It quickly gives you the results you want.

Love your keyboard shortcuts. This is by far the fastest way to get the job done.

Customize the Quick Access toolbar. This is the one at the upper left of your screen.

How about you? Are there techniques you do to make yourself work faster when doing PowerPoint presentations? For more information on this, please head to this link: Work faster in PowerPoint